WASHINGTON, May 21 — For many years, the political struggle over abortion was often framed as a starkly binary choice: the interest of the woman, advocated by supporters of abortion rights, versus the interest of the fetus, advocated by opponents of abortion.
But last month’s Supreme Court decision upholding the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act marked a milestone for a different argument advanced by anti-abortion leaders, one they are increasingly making in state legislatures around the country. They say that abortion, as a rule, is not in the best interest of the woman; that women are often misled or ill-informed about its risks to their own physical or emotional health; and that the interests of the pregnant woman and the fetus are, in fact, the same.
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The anti-abortion movement’s focus on women has been building for a decade or more, advanced by groups like the conservative Justice Foundation, the National Right to Life Committee and Feminists for Life.
“We think of ourselves as very pro-woman,” said Wanda Franz, president of the National Right to Life Committee. “We believe that when you help the woman, you help the baby.”
It is embodied in much of the imagery and advertising of the anti-abortion movement in recent years, especially the “Women Deserve Better Than Abortion” campaign by Feminists for Life, the group that counts Jane Sullivan Roberts, the wife of the chief justice, among its most prominent supporters.
It is also at the heart of an effort — expected to escalate in next year’s state legislative sessions — to enact new “informed consent” and mandatory counseling laws that critics assert often amount to a not-so-subtle pitch against abortion. Abortion-rights advocates, still reeling from last month’s decision, argue that this effort is motivated by ideology, not women’s health.
“Informed consent is really a misleading way to characterize it,” said Roger Evans, senior director of public policy litigation and law for Planned Parenthood. “To me, what we’ll see is an increasing attempt to push a state’s ideology into a doctor-patient relationship, to force doctors to communicate more and more of the state’s viewpoint.”
Nancy Keenan, president of Naral Pro-Choice America, said, “It’s motivated by politics, not by science, not by medical care, and not for the purposes of compassion.”
The Guttmacher Institute, a research group and an affiliate of Planned Parenthood, said recently that “a considerable body of credible evidence” over 30 years contradicted the notion that legal abortion posed long-term dangers to women’s health, physically or mentally.
I agree with the critics on this approach. This is just another assertion that women are too feeble minded to make major decisions on their lift under the guise of "protecting women". While I would probably support counseling for a soon to be mother that didn't want to give birth, pushing the "state's" viewpoint is a backwards approach. It's similar to any legislation on abortion in my view. While I find it well within the bounds of our legislature to seek out the advice of professionals in the medical field to draft a bill of safeguards against improper procedures an poor practices, I don't believe that any of this rhetoric comes from anyone involved in the medical field. The recent Supreme Court ruling is an example of this. As I've said before in other posts, there is no such medical term "partial-birth abortion". This is a propaganda tool used by haters of Roe v. Wade to overturn that decision. These are buzz words used by politicians to to sway public favor to their viewpoint. Their viewpoint is that woman are less than men. That women should submit to their husbands. They believe that rape is the woman's fault and that decisions to abort a fetus because of rape are unfounded. They claim to protect the health of the mother, yet don't usually bother to make allowance for the mother's health in their proposals. They merely wish to socialize this nation in a Christian tradition that most Christians don't even believe in. If there is any one person who can prove to me that any abortion restrictive legislation is not tied directly to a Christian Fundamentalist movement, please do. But from what I can tell, this is all religious bullshit. And my Constitution says that religion doesn't dictate policy. Regardless of how I feel personally about abortions or gay marriage or any topic that hinges on religious perspective, they have no place in the public discourse of our country. It is a basic tenant of our freedom that the conscience of the people be privately held and publicly defended. Not the other way around. No one is forcing Christians to abort their children. Misinformation in abortion clinics often happen the other way around. Often doctor's don't have the sensitivity required to properly counsel women, particularly young women about this decision. A non-biased counseling program would probably help, but that's the key, non-biased is a hard word when you're touching on a person's individual faith.
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